The Business Alchemist can look back on many glowing achievements, but few compare to a first bronze medallion swim badge that was proudly presented by the then Scunthorpe town player, Kevin Keegan (pre-perm). Imagine my horror then to overhear a Business Analyst decry professional certification as being no better than a swim badge. This is wrong at every level.

Certification... the Cornerstone of the Business Analysis Profession

Firstly, the "swim badge" shows a real achievement, swimming a certain distance, collecting the brick from the bottom of the pool and being able to tread water in your pj's is no mean feat.

At another level, certification is the cornerstone of any profession. Consider the stock that is placed in the long established qualifications associated with the accountancy, legal and engineering professions. Also, I wouldn't have an unqualified plumber fix my boiler. Proof that you have achieved an accepted level of knowledge and that importantly you can apply your knowledge in given situations should be the norm for all professions. So why should business analysis be any different?

It is perhaps easy to forget that certification has a syllabus that is formed from good practice and includes the tools and techniques that have been proven to work time and again in a range of situations. How fantastic that leaders in the field have been able to complete extensive research and condense their relevant findings into digestible chunks of information. Far better to have this as a basis to a career than to learn from the bad habits of others.

Certification Underpins the Professional Development of Business Analysts

Certification provides an accepted best tool kit, underpinning a consistency of approach and a common way of doing things across a professional group. A qualified and "tooled up" BA workforce, fully equipped and certified to perform their roles can be a tour de force in many situations. Consider the value of being able to produce complete, sufficiently detailed and unambiguous requirements on a repeat basis - never a bad service to offer.

Professional recognition should and does provide a confidence for the individual and a sense of achievement for all involved. It can give credibility to an organisation and raise the profile of the BA role at a time when the core skills are in highest demand.

Certification shows you are serious about your career development and, in a competitive market, that you stand out from your peers, not to mention maximising your earnings potential. I doubt there is any employer who wouldn't see a professional qualification as an easy means of shortlisting a CV.

Skill development and learning from leading exponents should be a motto for both the swimming pool and our professional lives. The sensation of drowning isn't a great one whether it be in the pool or in the thick of change.

Looking to update your BA toolkit? Check out AssistKD's wide choice of business analysis courses.